[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 87 (Friday, June 20, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1280-E1281]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               NATIONAL GAMBLING IMPACT STUDY COMMISSION

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. FRANK R. WOLF

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, June 20, 1997

  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, earlier today I had the opportunity to address 
the National Gambling Impact Study Commission's first meeting and I 
would like to place my remarks in the Record. They follow:

                Gambling Impact Study Commission Hearing

       Good morning. I am delighted to be here. As a matter of 
     fact, I can't begin to tell you just how delighted I am.
       You are about to begin an important journey and one of your 
     first steps will be to prepare a road map to guide you. There 
     are some important things you should know at the beginning 
     and I am pleased to have this opportunity to speak with you. 
     I appreciate your kindness and your attention. I will not 
     take up too much of your time but there are matters of 
     consequence which I must address.
       The task before you is as important as it is enormous. But 
     your goal is really very simple. Today, when a community, 
     town, city, or even a State is considering the pros and cons 
     of letting some kind of gambling activity start up, they have 
     nowhere to go to obtain reliable, factual, and unbiased 
     answers to their questions.
       Your job is merely to make that information easily 
     available to them. That's it. Congress has given you 2 years 
     and an adequate budget to uncover, compile, and digest all 
     the available information and I have every confidence that 
     you are up to the task.
       I hope you will all take a look at Gambling in America. 
     This is the final report of the 1976 Commission on the Review 
     of the National Policy Toward Gambling. This 3-year study, 
     completed over 20 years ago when legalized gambling was in 
     its infancy, was the last time government took a hard look at 
     gambling. This report would be a good starting point for you. 
     In the preface, commission executive director James E. 
     Ritchie concluded that ``we can no longer afford to be ill-
     informed and complacent about a matter of such manifest 
     national concern.'' Yet today, over two decades later, we are 
     still having difficulty shining the light of the day on this 
     dubious enterprise.
       Let me say at the outset, I oppose gambling. I think it is 
     anti-family, anti-business and does much more harm than good. 
     I certainly don't want it in my community or in my State and 
     would fight it from coming there with all my energy.
       But I don't have any right to make that decision for other 
     communities or other places. That's up to the people who live 
     there to decide for themselves. But I'm not asking you to be 
     against gambling. What I do ask, though, and what America 
     demands of you, is to be open minded, fair, undaunted in the 
     pursuit of knowledge based upon solid research and courageous 
     enough to air the truth in the face of what I know will be 
     enormous pressure from special interests and ``spin 
     artists.''
       In your search for information, I hope you will be out on 
     the road. I urge you to hold hearings all across America. The 
     answers to your questions do not lie here in Washington but 
     in the gambling centers of Las Vegas, Atlantic City, and 
     Biloxi; and in regions which are learning to live with 
     casinos and their effects such as New Orleans, St. Louis, and 
     Milwaukee. You should travel to the small towns of Illinois, 
     Iowa, and Missouri to see what river boat casinos are doing 
     to local economies. You should visit States hosting tribal 
     casinos and States which have been recent battlegrounds in 
     the debate over allowing gambling to expand within their 
     borders such as New York, Pennsylvania, and Florida. These 
     are the places where you will meet the people who will help 
     you form your conclusions and where you should set up shop.
       I do want to share with you a few observations. I first 
     became interested in this issue some years ago when there was 
     an effort to bring river boat casino gambling to my State of 
     Virginia. Truthfully, I didn't think it was a good idea but I 
     wasn't sure. And there were no good answers to my questions. 
     The preponderance of information that was available was 
     provided by gambling interests which I found suspect and of 
     dubious reliability. And as I dug further into this issue, I 
     was confronted with an army of high priced advocates 
     representing gambling interests. No one was there to 
     represent the people who live in the area and their families.
       As a matter of fact, this was about the same time Disney 
     was trying to build a new theme park in my congressional 
     district. This was a high profile and very controversial 
     initiative and the joke around town was that if you were a 
     lawyer or lobbyist this was ``the'' place to find work. Yet, 
     I happened to read in the paper that Disney was out-spent by 
     a good margin by the pro-river boat gambling interests 
     lobbying Virginia's General Assembly. Again, while no one was 
     there representing the people who live and work in the area, 
     gambling interests were pouring money into their effort to 
     get a toe hold in Virginia.
       And no wonder. Once gambling sets up shop, it's almost 
     impossible to get rid of it. In fact, there's a history of 
     things going the other way. Communities begin to rely on 
     their share of the revenues and local politicians cave in to 
     demands from the gamblers for longer hours, more facilities 
     and more tables or slots or wheels. And they have the money 
     to do it. This is about a $500 billion per year industry with 
     profits of $50 billion. That's billion with a ``B.''
       Too much of this money is spent in the high stakes game of 
     influencing lawmakers and other government officials. 
     According to the Federal Elections Commission, during the 
     1995-96 election cycle, the casino gambling industry poured 
     more than $4.4 million into federal political contributions 
     including $2.6 million in ``soft money'' to the Democratic 
     and Republican parties. State and local campaigns, too, are 
     awash in gambling dollars. Some $100 million over the past 
     five years has gone to influence state legislatures around 
     the country.
       The more I worked on this issue, the more concerned I 
     became. All the evidence I could gather pointed to the 
     conclusion that gambling was harmful to people and to 
     communities. It led to crime, to corruption, to 
     cannibalization of existing business and it caused social 
     ills. The response to my concerns from gambling interests was 
     to note that all my evidence was anecdotal and gambling 
     really jacked up the local economy and they were working to 
     solve whatever problems gambling might contribute to--such as 
     addiction.
       I felt their response was unsatisfactory and introduced, 
     with others, legislation to create this commission which, I 
     believed, would quickly pass. Who could be against taking a 
     look at the impact gambling might be having on America?
       The answer, I swiftly learned, was the well-heeled and 
     determined industry itself. Fronted by a virtual army of well 
     paid and well connected Washington lobbyists with access to 
     almost every door in this town, they fought this legislation 
     every step of the way. First they tried to kill it in the 
     House and then the Senate. Then they tried to de-fang the 
     commission by denying it the power to subpoena relevant 
     documents and when that failed they worked to have gambling 
     proponents appointed to this body--to stack the commission, 
     if you will. But I believe you are up to this task. I am 
     counting on you to do a good job. America is counting on you.
       One of the first hurdles you must overcome is that the 
     gambling industry has done such a good job of selling 
     themselves as a good neighbor, a creator of revenue and jobs. 
     They pay taxes and governments get hooked on the revenue. 
     Politicians are reluctant to walk away from this money that 
     feeds government spending. But this is a problem, not a 
     solution. As Robert Goodman asks in the preface of his book, 
     The Luck Business, ``Do we really want a government so 
     dependent on gambling that they are forced actively to 
     promote an activity that takes disproportionately from those 
     who can afford it least, does the greatest damage to existing 
     economies and can be highly addictive?''
       No, I do not believe we do. Various studies indicate that 
     perhaps 30 percent of all gambling revenue comes from that 5 
     percent or so of problem gamblers addicted to its lure. Even 
     though the gambling industry claims to care about this 
     addiction problem, new games and new attractions are always 
     coming on-line which further sharpen the craving of 
     compulsive gamblers drawing them deeper into the web of self 
     destruction.
       After you complete your work, I think you will agree.
       Let me close with this. As you begin your search for truth 
     and fairness you will not have to look far to find those who 
     will present the gambler's views. You will find their 
     arguments and presentations, on the surface, most compelling 
     and easy to go down; they have the money to hire the very 
     best to do this sort of thing. I hope you will look beyond 
     the glossy presentations; ask for the research information 
     you need and don't be put off by dodges that it isn't 
     available, isn't relevant or you really don't need it. You 
     do. Stick to your guns and use your subpoena power.
       You must avoid being led down the wrong path in your quest 
     for the truth. I predict you will need to search much harder 
     to find witnesses and experiences depicting the downside of 
     gambling. How are you going to find the theater owner who 
     went out of business when the casino opened up? How eager to 
     testify will be the woman whose husband

[[Page E1281]]

     became addicted to gambling, squandered their life savings, 
     ran up incredible debts and then, when he could bear no more, 
     took his own life?
       The father of recently slain Sherrice Iverson, the 7-year 
     old whose strangled body was found in a Nevada casino 
     restroom, after she had been allowed to roam unsupervised for 
     long periods while he played the tables, might not be a 
     willing witness. It may be difficult to persuade an indicted 
     state legislator to sit before you to relate how he sold out 
     those he represented for an under-the-table payoff from those 
     wanting to bring a casino to town. Will Missouri's former 
     House Speaker of 15 years who resigned in the face of a 
     federal investigation into financial ties with casinos be 
     eager to tell his story?
       Two prominent Kansas City clergy who resigned their 
     pastorates recently due to problem gambling may be reluctant 
     to tell their stories. According to Kansas City Reverend Ben 
     Skinner, one stole $60,000 from his congregation and lost it 
     at the casinos and the other was discovered gambling while 
     disguised in a wig and glasses. They may not be eager to meet 
     with you.
       But too many people with stories like these are out there 
     and you need to hear from them.
       I hope you do. I wish you well and pray for your success. 
     Thank you.

     

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